Halutz resigns

Finally one of the guilty three, responsible for the fiasco of the Lebanon War, has resigned. Although Dan Halutz was an excellent senior officer and Head of the IAF, he was a failure as Chief of Staff. But, he should not be the only one resigning, both PM Olmert and MoD Peretz are equally culpable for the outcome of the war.
The three main aims of the IDF during the war were: 1, to relese the two captive IDF soldiers, 2. to stop the Katyusha rockets falling on northern Israel, and 3. to destory Hizbollah's capability. They failed in all three major aims. However, as a result of Halutz's focus on use of the air force to destroy Hizbollah's facilities in Beirut and the south and their major arteries of resupply, the war was not a total failure for Israel. But, there were other failures, including constant changing of orders leading to frontline confusion, lack of providing front line troops with up-to-date information and intelligence of the enemy's dispositions (even though this information was held by the MI), bad tactics (such as sending groups of soldiers into buildings which were targeted by Hizbollah and bunching reserves together in areas under rocket fire), poor or no training of reserves, etc. While Halutz cannot be blamed for all of this, he was in charge and he was responsible. He certainly was the cause of the IDF relying on air power and not making a ground assault early in the war to attempt to achieve the war aims. Relying too much on air power also caused civilian deaths for which Israel was widely criticized (so-called "disproportionate use of force"). It is likely that Halutz decided to resign now, two weeks before the Winograd Commission is due to give its Report on the conduct of the war, in order that he can defend himself before them as a civilian.
Peretz is also under pressure to resign, not least from members of his own Labor Party, and they are having a Central Committee meeting soon that will discuss him. The main focus of the meeting is that Peretz appointed Labor MK Majadle as the first Arab Cabinet Minister (Science and Sport) in Israeli history. But, notably Peretz did this without the permission of PM Olmert (who was visiting China at the time) and without consulting his colleagues in Labor. He said that he had the right to do it under the coalition agreement, but it seems likely that he did this for political reasons, in order to obtain support from the Israeli Arab sector. The Central Committee disagrees with this action and says that they must be consulted for any party appointment, and while Olmert is reported to be angry, he has kept his peace and is biding his time. Eventually Peretz's incompetence will catch up with him, and the sooner the better.